I refer to the article “Mentoring programme to help Malay and Muslim workers level up” (Straits Times, Feb 13).

Help workers from low-income families become PMEs?

It states that “A mentoring programme has been set up for Malay and Muslim workers from low-income families to take on professional, manager and executive (PME) jobs”.

When I read the above, my impression was that the new programme is to help Malay and Muslim workers from low-income families to take on PME jobs.

Help anyone who received a pay increase?

And then when I read – “The pilot programme – set up by Mendaki’s training arm Sense and funded by Temasek Cares, a charity of Temasek Holdings – aims to help individuals who have been promoted to a PME position or received a pay increase or assumed an expanded portfolio in their current jobs recently, transition smoothly in their new roles”

I became somewhat puzzled because it would appear that the only people who apparently will not be targeted to help under the programme, are workers who did not get promoted to a PME position (still in the same “none PME” position),  workers who did not receive a pay increase (still the same or lesser pay), and workers who did not assume an expanded portfolio in their current jobs (still doing the same job without any pay increase? – because otherwise they would fall under the “received a pay increase” category); recently.

Surely, there must be very few workers who did not receive any pay increase, or assumed an expanded portfolio without any pay increase.

So, it would appear the programme covers practically all Malay and Muslim workers – unless there are a lot of them who did not receive a pay increase.

Strange reporting or criteria?

If the above is correct, then the criteria to be helped under the programme looks kind of strange right?

Also, as “These individuals will be paired with mentors with the relevant job background and interests.

Currently, the programme has assigned 20 mentors to 31 workers, who each have a per capita income of $850 and below. The two-year programme hopes to reach out to 275 workers, and achieve a one-to-one mentoring ratio”

– isn’t the target of 275 workers in 2 years kind of low – if any worker who had a pay increase meets the criteria?

Per capita income below $850?

Moreover, why use “a per capita income of $850 and below”? Why is there no mention as to what is the pay of the 31 workers under the programme?

How many Malay and Muslim workers have “per capita income below $850”?

Don’t you get the sense that there may be something wrong with the reporting or the criteria?

Workers happy or unhappy?

I refer to the article “9 in 10 working Singaporeans are happy overall – NTUC U Family poll” (Straits Times, Feb 13).

But it was reported just 3 weeks ago that “Singapore has unhappiest employees among 7 Asia Pacific countries polled“? (Straits Times, Jan 22)

So, who do we believe – The annual Randstad World of Work Report or the NTUC survey?

So many job fairs nowadays?

I refer to the article “More than 700 posts looking for takers at job fair” (Straits Times, Feb 13).

It states that “These range from retail assistant and customer service assistant positions to machinist and welder posts”.

No pay mentioned?

Since there was no mention as to what was the pay – I used the MOM wages benchmarking tool and obtained the follow:-

Retail Assistant – median basic wage $1,074

Customer Service Assistant and Machinist – “This occupation is not available for benchmarking, as we will only release data with sufficient coverage”

Welder – median basic wage $1,896.

By the way, how many of the 700 jobs are for welders?

150th Press Freedom ranking?

After reading the above 3 articles in 1 day – do you have a better feel as to why our Press Freedom ranking has just dropped another notch to 150th?

Leong Sze Hian